


Far From Home

by frozenCinders



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Moderate Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 10:17:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20044357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenCinders/pseuds/frozenCinders
Summary: Mello's path from England to America was a convoluted one.





	Far From Home

The first thing Mello thought when he left Wammy's House was "I need to get out of this fucking country."

He hadn't formulated a plan yet, just stormed out on impulse. He hopped around public transport and eventually onto a plane until he ended up in France, just to test how well he'd be able to adjust to another country. Strangers stare at him, pity and concern in their eyes at what they see as a child wandering the streets alone. At least _Mello_ doesn't still fucking act like a child.

("That's insensitive," Roger's scolding voice echoes in his mind. "What if _Near_ decided to pick on _you?_ How would you feel?"

He'd feel fucking vindicated instead of ignored, dismissed, pathetic.)

He manages on his own just fine, social skills coming more easily to him than most other Wammy kids. Mello guesses he has to be the best at _something,_ at least. It's not good enough for him, but it's useful.

The only time he feels uncomfortable in his new environment is when he realizes he's being followed. He considers all his options. He buys a decorative knife from an antique shop, claiming he thinks it's pretty and that his non-existent bedbound mother likes to collect knives. He weaves a story in his head about her in case he ever needs it. He swears he remembers her having tattoos and snake bite piercings. It's the only memory he has of any of his family; a fuzzy image of a woman he may or may not have been related to.

He frequents the antique shop to practice his story and to have someone he's familiar with, being all alone in a foreign country. He keeps the owner updated on his "mother". Mello notices movement outside the window during one of their conversations and has to fight to hide his shock when he catches a glance of the perpetrator. He brings the conversation to a natural end, feigning calm, and leads the person who's been following him down an alley.

"Roger sent you to keep an eye on me," Mello accuses. He's always been one for statements rather than questions.

"_I_ sent me to keep an eye on you," Matt corrects. "What was I gonna do there without you? Take your place as number two?"

Mello shoves him against the uneven brick wall, lucid enough in his rage to be careful of his head but still wanting him to feel it.

"Don't fucking call me that," he snarls. Mello is free to acknowledge his status himself, of course, but there's nothing he hates more than others thinking the same way of him.

"You were stupid to follow me out," he goes on. "Go home, Matt."

Matt stays leaning against the wall even after Mello releases him and makes to leave.

"If I'm stupid, then so are you," he says. Mello turns on his heel and lunges at him. The bricks cut his knuckles when he misses. The pain makes him angrier.

"You need to wash that," Matt comments like Mello didn't just try to deck him.

Mello pulls Matt away from the wall by his shirt and swings again. Matt lets him hit him this time, blood and dirt smearing on his cheek. It doesn't feel good, physically or otherwise. Mello grits his teeth in instant regret.

"Happy now?" Matt asks, unfazed. Mello wipes the blood off of Matt's face.

"No."

Mello storms out of the alley, knowing Matt is on his heels. Neither of them speak for a few blocks.

"Where have you been staying?" Mello asks, only because he thinks he would have noticed if Matt was following him from hotel to hotel.

"A flat," is his answer. Mello whips around, a "how the fuck?" dying on his lips when he remembers that Matt had the opportunity to ask for such things before leaving, unlike Mello who ran away in a huff.

"How did you find me?"

"Went around asking about an angry, lonely little blond boy."

"Fuck you."

"Well, it worked."

Mello's path to France was convoluted, as he was working on feelings rather than logic at the time. Matt must have had his work cut out for him in his search for Mello, yet he persisted anyway, despite being such a lazy piece of shit that he used to turn in blank assignments for no reason.

Mello doesn't even ask, just checks out of his current hotel and follows Matt home, who willingly leads him there.

With Matt around, Mello's mind is clearer. He doesn't get distracted as easily, because Matt handles things for him without even needing to be told. Still won't fucking pick up after himself, but if Mello drops something, Matt is handing it to him before he can even think to look down. It's always seemed like Matt only has energy to take care of other people, never himself.

Within two weeks, Mello has a plan in order and ready to go. He predicts the path Near will take and swerves in the exact opposite direction. Near is a "good boy" and would never do anything incriminating or even slightly mischievous. Mello decides to work outside the law, because he knows Near will stay within it.

He explains as little as possible to Matt, because he suddenly thinks it may actually be possible to scare him off and, though he won't admit it, he doesn't want to let him go now that he's here. Despite hardly knowing Mello's plan, he boards a flight to America with him.

California is a lot less kind to him than Strasbourg. The strangers don't pity him anymore. Mello feels right at home with that. He had to leave his knife in France, wordlessly placed on the counter of the shop he'd bought it from while the owner was cleaning the back room, but Matt comes home one day with a silenced pistol for each of them and earns himself the rest of Mello's explanation.

Due to his age and his accent, people always relax around Mello and think him to be docile-- harmless. It pisses Mello off so much that he avoids the English language entirely, speaking Spanish in public as much as he can help it until he's perfected his American accent in private. Matt is slow to follow, and even once he has the accent mostly down, he keeps using slang that Mello knows would earn him raised eyebrows from Americans. At least Matt never goes outside, never talks to anyone unless he has to.

It's with the pistol that Matt gave him that Mello executes a mob boss. He'd tracked him down, stalked him until he knew his routine, caught him alone, and placed his silencer right against the back of his head. This is easy, he thinks, I'm ready for this.

Until the adrenaline wears off and the gravity of taking a life slams him. Alongside it comes helpless panic about what to do with the body. An impossibly shaky hand fishes his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and promptly drops it. Mello is halfway down to reach for it when he stops himself. He can't rely on Matt for everything. He'd resolved to do this himself. Calm down and think.

His breathing is still unsteady as he hides the pistol in the holster under his jacket and gives moving the body a try. It's so god damn _heavy_. He barely drags it two feet to the outer wall of the storage unit just to lean him against it. There's no point in finding his key and hiding him inside, his blood is all over the place already. Mello had been too hasty, had seen him appear to second guess whether he needed to check on his stash this week, as he was already going to be late coming home and had an appointment the next morning. He could have gotten caught if he hadn't killed him just then.

It's only the first step of many to his plan. Mello rolls out a slew of equipment beside the body. A full hour later, and by god is it messy, Mello has something much easier to carry than an entire body. The clock passes midnight and Mello realizes he's spending the first hours of his eighteenth birthday draining a head of blood and sealing it in a box with a preposterous amount of duct tape. He doesn't trust himself to present the head without losing his cool. He leaves the box on the doorstep of a hideout he'd researched with a note.

"A gift.

\- Mello"

His shaking had stopped well before he got home, but it starts up again as soon as Matt raises his head to look at him. He was careful not to get blood on him and already discarded the gloves that had gotten soaked with it. Matt couldn't have known. But he did.

He'll kill him if he ever mentions it, but Mello breaks down in Matt's arms that night, no matter how many times he angrily throws them off of him. Eventually, he caves in and sobs against his chest. He wakes up about fourteen hours later, covered by a blanket and greeted by the sight of chocolate bars covering every centimeter of the coffee table in front of him. So Matt remembered.

Mello forces himself to forget about his plan for just this one day. He finds a church to visit; doesn't confess, just stands in front of the altar for a bit and contemplates what God must think of him now. It's all to take down a god of death, Mello thinks, as if explaining himself. He clasps his hands together and mouths an apology into the space between them. On his way home, he hears his name spoken in hushed tones.

Mello will never like killing. The power that comes with hurting, with manipulating, yes, but he will never enjoy taking a life. He has no choice but to get used to it, though. By the time he comes face to face with Rod Ross, soon to become his greatest tool, he is unshakable. His eyes steely and determined and his figure sufficiently intimidating now that he's finally about done growing, Mello has perfectly shaped himself into the role he has decided to take on. His reputation has everyone with a brain walking on eggshells around him, and those without are hurriedly silenced by the former, whether by words or by actions.

Mello is no longer the overly emotional, impulsive, inferior boy he used to be. He believes himself to have already surpassed Near; now he just needs to prove it. He just needs to find Kira. Every time he finds himself regretting anything he's done, he merely has to remember his goal to feel completely justified.

So why, then, does he end up crying in front of Matt again half a year after his first kill? He swears nothing triggered this. He voices his confusion, his irritation. Matt tells him there's only so much one person can take. Silently, he is asking Mello to share the burden with him. Mello feels he has no choice but to accept, just as wordlessly. The only rule he sets is that Matt is forbidden from pursuing Kira in any capacity. Matt interlaces his fingers and nods. Mello knows he does that when he's lying to someone he respects.

Only four months go by without Mello making himself vulnerable again. He doesn't know why he got so emotional. All he knows is that he came home, saw an open, unfamiliar carton of cigarettes and a brand new lighter on the coffee table, and felt the need to hit someone. Either Matt has someone over, or he's started smoking because of Mello. He knows the chances of the former are 0%.

He knows yelling at Matt about this will probably only make matters worse, but he can't help it. Mello storms into his room and catches him just as he's pulling a clean shirt on, just in time to grab him by it. His words fail him; he just bares his teeth at Matt and shakes in anger.

"It's not you, Mells," he says, knowingly.

Fuck him, "it's not you". Of course it's him. Every little fucking thing Matt does is either for or because of Mello, one way or the other.

"Want me to prove it?"

Mello calms slightly at the question, furrowing his brow in confusion. How would Matt prove such a thing? He releases Matt and crosses his arms, watching him expectantly.

"Prove it, then," he says.

"Well, first, you have to promise not to kill me," Matt says with an easy smile.

"Depends on what it is." Matt knows Mello's real answer, despite his words.

Like all Wammy kids, Mello has excellent reasoning abilities. As soon as he's faced with any problem, any curiosity, his brain switches into overdrive to figure it out in record time. Hardly anything ever manages to catch him off guard, and even when they do, Mello is able to collect himself and think of a plan of action before anything else can happen.

Matt, however, is fucking great at catching people off guard, at being impossible to actually figure out. Mello never minded much because the two never clash.

Ungloved hands (a fucking rarity with Matt) reaching up to hold Mello's face and a mouth suddenly on his own were not anything he would have ever expected. The kiss ends before Mello's eyes even finish widening, but Matt keeps his hands where they are.

"Always wondered if your face was soft," he mumbles, stroking Mello's cheek with his thumb just once before pulling away.

Mello gapes at him, completely in shock.

"Anyway, if I wanted to leave, I would have by now," Matt says. "I'm with you because I wanna be, and if that's not proof, then... fucking search me, because I have no idea what is."

It takes Mello a few more seconds to recover. His mind is fucking blank-- of course Matt is the one to throw him completely off balance.

"Don't..." he starts, but Matt is talking before he can figure out what he wants to say.

"Yeah, I know. I won't do it again," he promises. "It's not a problem."

It would be better for Mello to leave it at that. It would be better for him to walk away right now. Instead, his expression hardens against his will and he removes his own gloves and whips them to the ground, taking Matt's face in his hands just as he'd done to Mello.

"Yours is softer," is what he says instead of the aggressive quip he'd had in mind.

Matt's smiles are always shallow, never lighting up his eyes. This one does, and Mello decides that the pros outweigh the cons, just from that.


End file.
